Tom Cruise -- will he have to choose between religion and career?

‘It’s useless to hold a person to anything he says while he’s in love ... drunk ... or running for office!” says Shirley MacLaine.

And James Wood tells us this: “Hug your mother often and tell her how much you love her. ... Cherish the dead you once loved so carelessly. They still live in our heart.”

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I wrote recently about my favorite literary hero, Jack Reacher, created by author Lee Child. The latest Reacher book, “A Wanted Man,” hasn’t received terrific reviews. Many fans are disappointed. But I thought it was pretty darn good! Maybe there wasn’t enough action or killing (although naturally there is enough of that!) It is perhaps a quieter adventure. And more than ever, Reacher’s super-minimalist life on the road, came through, and seemed even more appealing. He kept challenging people to assess their own lives, chock full of possessions and mortgages and other such worries. Despite some fan griping, “A Wanted Man” is yet another big best-seller for Lee Child and Delacorte.

P.S. Paramount is a wee bit nervous over Tom Cruise’s coming “Jack Reacher” movie. The studio is worried that unending, negative Scientology publicity — accelerated by the Katie Holmes divorce — could finally do him in. There are even suggestions that Tom will have to choose between his religion and his career! (The Hollywood Reporter has a fascinating take on all this.) I think Tom will keep both. He doesn’t strike me as a man who compromises easily — or at all. He’s on the current cover of People — “Tom, His Life Alone.” Not for long, I’d wager.

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I went to a Plaza Hotel gala for the American Theatre Wing as a guest of the Dorothy Strelsin Foundation. (Ms. Strelsin was a denizen of the first celebrated revue titled “New Faces” and she was a Broadway lover to the end of her life. I always like to celebrate her.)

This was a big event. Lots of the famous showed up to honor The Redgrave Family: Harold Prince, Mary Rodgers Guettel, William Ivey Long, Daryl Roth and her son Jordan Roth of Jujamcyn, John Benjamin Hickey, Willa Kim, Morley Safer, and many more VIPs I probably did not see. Theodore S. Chapin, president and executive director of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, also received a tribute.

I particularly loved Alan Cumming who sang a song from “Cabaret” in honor of the late Natasha Richardson.